Both sides of the station

The now contentious era of jazz history, post-1967, is one that fascinates and eludes me. As my cameo on the Greenleaf blog has made clear, my knowledge of that period is quite limited. What I do know of it comes at the hands of my experience at CKUT, my time at the Banff Centre, subsequent discussions with my piano teacher, Jeff Johnston, and the unexpected finding of Gary Giddins' Rhythm-a-Ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation in the '80s (discovered used in Key West on the Cruise Ship X run). Giddins' book is revelatory not only for the reasons I mention in the Greenleaf e-mail, but also because its columns end in 1984 - the year before I was born.

My relationship with the avant-garde has been a slowly developing one. I had cultivated the idea somehow (probably through my young interpretations of DownBeat articles) that avant-garde = free = anarchy. This conclusion was mightily shattered over the course of high school and university. When the high school band trip invaded Symphony Center in Chicago for Medeski Martin & Wood, nobody knew who the opening act was - a Chicago group called 8 Bold Souls. In their bio, I saw the letters "AACM" - an acronym I had seen in the magazines, but never fully explained, and always used in conjunction with those dreaded "free" groups. But Ed Wilkerson and company lured me into their music, a blend I'd never heard before, and with instrumentation that perfectly suited the quirkiness of the compositions. It may have been avant-garde, but there was certainly a lot of structure to it. MMW were more chaotic - and sailed over my early adolescent ears. Of course now, their acoustic album Tonic has high standing with me, after a rather epiphanic listen in my first year of university; I wish I had a tape of that concert to go back to.

Maturity is relative; and with my ears and self having been developed over the intervening years (and having actually listened to the music), I no longer fear the avant-garde. However, the old adage comes into play here: we fear what we do not know. In my high school music classes, the "classical history" section of the course treated 20th-century music - twice. Ravel's Chansons madécasses, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, Berg's Wözzeck, George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children - not light fare, by any means. Our jazz history went from ragtime to Blakey, and maybe a little bit of fusion. University was not much better: two semesters of classical history, from Gregorian chant through Joan Tower. Jazz history was crammed into one, and much like the Ken Burns' series, we ran out of time to properly address the various factions of the music that sprout after 1960. And as much as I detested being subjected to Sprechstimme at 9 am, I appreciate the sentiment of the classical history and analysis classes I took: you may not like Berio or Boulez or Messiaen, but they are important, and this is why. To our jazz history professor's credit, he put on a lot of earlier jazz that gets written off as well, and is as equally important as the post-1960s music, and it legitimately was a time factor that prevented our treatment of modern subject matter. Yet even still, the post-60's stuff was the standard scenario: Ornette goes free; Miles, Wayne and Herbie go electric. My arranging and composition classes were open forums, and we were allowed and encouraged to do whatever we liked; but the models we looked at were, again, the usual suspects: Brookmeyer, Kenny Wheeler, Thad Jones, Maria Schneider, Wayne, Sammy Nestico. Not to disparage the contributions of the above, nor to disparage my education entirely, but it's obvious that there's a large section of the history missing here.

Then again, it seems like many music schools are divided, in both classical and jazz - you either have to be forward-looking at the expense of acknowledging the past; or learn the tradition without jumping into new water. Some of my classical composition colleagues report that it's anathema to even so much as hint at tonality. Bebop, swing, and the blues are either the Holy Trinity, or dusty relics that are relegated to their time in history. I prefer to subscribe to the cliche that you have to know where you've been to know where you're going. It's one thing to willingly choose not to swing, or to be atonal, or (insert artistic aesthetic here); it's entirely another to shut out those worlds completely. I was fortunate enough to have Jeff as a teacher and mentor, and we often talked about avant-garde/free music; I got a balanced education that way.

Luckily, I got involved with CKUT my second year of university, and their library houses a whole world of improvised music not much discussed in the faculty: Ken Vandermark, Anthony Braxton, David Murray, William Parker, Tim Berne, Wadada Leo Smith. (To be fair, the music library holds gems such as the out-of-print '70s Braxton quartet sessions on Arista, and other like-minded albums from the period, most of Jimmy Giuffre's catalog, as well as a good amount of modern jazz based on student and faculty requests.) Through CKUT, I had (and have) the opportunity to hear music I otherwise wouldn't find, either because of availability issues or personal taste. Jazz Euphorium is a collective show, and the hosts' tastes run the gamut of the jazz & improvised music spectrum. By co-hosting with my colleagues, I've been hipped to music to which I normally wouldn't give the time of day. And I'm grateful for that.

And this treasure trove at CKUT has led me to identify with the "European attitude" I mentioned here: "...it's all music, and as musicians we should be able to play tunes (both originals and standards) and to improvise freely with equal conviction, if not capacity." The more we know about music - any music, all music, all manners of creation and performance - the more compelling our own work will be.

Broadband PSA

I'll be hosting two vastly different radio shows on CKUT (90.3 FM) in the space of three days:

Monday, August 7, 12:00-14:00 EST - World Skip the Beat. "Imaginative international music" is the tagline, and I'll go on a truly globetrotting journey.
Wednesday, August 9, 20:00-22:00 EST - Jazz Euphorium. My usual haunt on the airwaves, with a mix of old and new, in and out.

Also, later in the month, on August 27, I'll be filling in for Agent Munkyhed and his cohorts on The Hearing Trumpet - a freeform, cross-genre extravaganza. Playlists will be posted here after the fact, and you can tune in online by clicking above. If you miss it, archives are up for about a week in high-quality, longer in lower quality.

The perils of sloppy filekeeping

You know it's bad when you're going through your Sibelius scores folder and you come across fragments you don't remember writing. I discovered a rather long-winded overwritten melody I (apparently) concocted while in high school that I'd long forgotten. There's some promise in there, I think... but I don't remember its inspiration or context at all. Very strange.

I made a new run to the CD section of the Grande Bibliotheque again. The selections on this occasion:
Billy Preston: The Ultimate Collection. I knew various songs on this anthology, but not Billy's versions of them ("Will It Go Round In Circles?," "You Are So Beautiful"). His cover of "Blackbird" might be the best of them all.
Gil Evans: & Ten; The Individualism of Gil Evans. I heard some of these pieces when Christine Jensen did her Master's composition colloquium on Gil's music, but not the full records. Both records feature Steve Lacy, but Individualism features a host of fantastic bassists (PC, Gary Peacock, Ron, Richard Davis), a rotating reed section with Wayne Shorter, Eric Dolphy, and Phil Woods (among others), and Elvin Jones in a much different atmosphere than his usual 1964 surroundings.
Anthony Braxton Quartet (Dortmund) 1976. Haven't listened yet.
Art Ensemble of Chicago: A Jackson In Your House/Message to Our Folks. Interesting to hear how they function in their earliest incarnation without Don Moye, but I'm not impressed by it. The out-and-out racial politics of "Get In Line" (from Jackson) are supremely dated. Message to Our Folks fares better, with a rollicking take on "Dexterity."

Your mind has turned to applesauce

Fagen and Becker never cease to impress: Don & Walt's open letter to Luke (and by extension, Owen) Wilson. Kudos to the Dan for eloquently (in a faux-Californian slacker kind of way) tearing the Hollywood establishment a new one.

Edited to note that this is intended to be humourous, not an actual calling-out of the Wilson clan.

It seems the hot topic of jazz journalism, circa 2006, is the "invasion" (as DownBeat labelled it a couple of months ago) of young European upstarts into the North American jazz consciousness. Francis Davis has launched a recent volley through hijacking his own review of a new ECM release, and Mwanji responds quite eloquently here.

As I've seen it, the contentious issue regarding the acceptance of European approaches to jazz music is the non-linearity with which many European musicians regard the jazz tradition. Much like Westerners have incorporated various ethnic musics into jazz or rock, Europeans take what they like out of the jazz tradition and use it accordingly. Their distance (both geographically and figuratively) allows them the freedom to operate outside the jazz history as espoused by [insert highly-touted American traditionalist writers here]. This brings up the two recurring themes of the America-vs.-Europe diatribes:

• It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. Europeans are either regarded as inherently incapable of swinging, or of willingly ignoring it as an essential part of jazzdom.
• Europeans, by virtue of their non-American status, do not understand the jazz tradition at all. According to certain critics, it is impossible to gloss over the bebop section of the history, and equate the early jazz and Dixieland with the avant-garde rumblings of the late '60s. (Edited for clarity after Mwanji's post here.)

The indefatigable Jack Reilly ties both these points together in his letter to DownBeat: "Without the blues, boogie-woogie, ragtime and stride, we would not have the jazz foundation. Europeans bypassed the building of this foundation, therefore they don't swing. The results are clear [...] their insularity oozes out of their music."

I must take issue with this. As always, it's those who stubbornly cling to the status quo that are insular. Exhibit A: The Trondheim Jazz Orchestra with Chick Corea at the IAJE in New York this past January. Erlend Skomsvoll and company trot out quite imaginative arrangements of Corea classics like "Crystal Silence," "Windows" and "Matrix," with the master at the keyboard. Scripts are flipped entirely: Reich-esque sax ostinatos as backgrounds, high brass comping for the tuba, free interludes alternating with exquisitely intricate composed passages. And how they swung when they wished to! What was liberating to me as a North American musician and listener was that they didn't try to imitate Corea's classic renditions of these pieces and fall short. They put their own distinct fingerprint on each piece. As well, the aforementioned free interludes were not mere wanking, but attuned communication on a rather high level. The American conservatory/music school mindset, which even seems to plague the professional scene, is that if you play tunes you cannot play free, and vice-versa. How quickly we have forgotten Keith, Paul Bley, Derek Bailey, and even Corea himself. The "European" attitude (which I first refreshingly experienced at the Banff Centre last year) is that it's all music, and as musicians we should be able to play tunes (both originals and standards) and to improvise freely with equal conviction, if not capacity. EDIT (08/06/2006): after an e-mail exchange with Dave Douglas, he makes the very valid point that there are North American artists who practice this as well. I refer to it as a "European" attitude mostly for the purposes of the dichotomy being treated here, and partially for the fact that I've seen this more consistently manifest in European conservatories.

Europeans are not alone in drawing from the wellspring of non-jazz music, and this has been going on for the past century. I'm surprised that critics and some musicians alike still regard the treatment of repertoire from artists like Bjork, Paul Simon, Radiohead or Nick Drake (to cite only the people I've covered in my own groups) as mere novelty, and that the inevitable next step - to write music evocative of these artists - is considered as some sort of jazz heresy. I recall what Vijay Iyer said about his use of Indian music, explaining that his concern is not whether said influence is apparent in the end product but how it functions in the generation of pieces. My added interpretation of that statement is that it's yet another piece of his personal musical puzzle, as important as Monk, Andrew Hill, Coltrane and the AACM. For my part (and for many others), I'm a gringo looking to Brazil and other parts of Latin America for inspiration. I don't claim to play the various folkloric music from that region authoritatively or authentically, but I do know I've been motivated and impressed by modern music from there and that it serves as impetus for my own progression. And who's to dispute the validity of the music that henceforth flows?

Return to the radiowaves

Just a quick note for the handful that follow this blog: I'll be hosting CKUT (90.3 FM)'s Jazz Euphorium show (for the first time in a long while) tomorrow (Wednesday, July 19) evening at 8-10 pm EDT. For those not in the Montreal area, you can tune in by clicking the link above.

The night the lights went out sur avenue du parc

This is what I get for not checking my Hour newsletters. I am stunned that Cinéma du Parc is going under. It's been a cornerstone of my life in Montreal, and more than that, it's usually been packed. Located right beside the New Residence of McGill University, and a very short walk away from the rest of the campus, it's in a central location of the city, easily accessible by metro and/or bus.

According to the press release on their site, it seems like it's yet another case of the multinational Goliaths devouring the hipper, trendier, smaller Davids. Never mind that AMC is a bigger business with comfier chairs, I've never really dug the atmosphere there. It's a legendary hockey stadium converted into a mall, complete with glaring fluorescent lights. There was always at least one movie that overlapped between AMC and du Parc, but I'd choose du Parc any day - it was more conducive to a student budget, for one, and it felt like you were sitting in your movie geek buddy's basement.

This doesn't rid Montreal of its rep cinemas, despite with the Hour article and the comments imply - it does rid Montreal of its Anglo rep cinema. It appears that CdP's sister theatre, Ex-Centris, will continue to be alive and well, and there's also le Parisien on Ste. Catherine.

The final screening at du Parc is scheduled for August 3. Fittingly, the film scheduled to be shown is The Corporation (which I never saw during its first run, anyway). I will do my damnedest to be there... for old times' sake.

Back to terra firma

My Cruise Ship X experience is behind me, and it has been populated by a spectrum of events that span from sheer misery to pure ecstacy. The last couple of weeks of my contract left me rather ambivalent about my departure - we had some personnel changes that raised the calibre of the band rather drastically, and I wish I was given more than two weeks to work with these colleagues.

Instead of discrediting the entire journey, I will say it has illuminated what I need out of music. I cannot abide by anything musical becoming merely a paycheque or a "job" - I'd rather take a day job and work on my personal endeavours on the side. I need to know who I'm performing with, especially when it's a nightly gig, and the unfortunate reality of pick-up bands is that the mystery is only revealed upon embarkation - which is a little late to back out. I have been spoiled by the music school opportunities of having colleagues consistently interested and capable of performing new music. And I have learned what it is to be a mentor to people, which was a very strange transition for me. I've always been the mentoree, the kid receiving and gleaning advice from my peers. To accept that I am now out of school and possibly have valid information to disseminate to other musicians is a very new concept to me.

Despite the realization of what I want out of music, I'm now staring down the crossroads of exactly how I wish to achieve it. Jazz is my primary love and the lens through which I view all other music (even those that I discovered before jazz), yet jamming out the R&B and funk with one of the mid-lounge bands was as thrilling as improvised music for me. And while I could never totally leave playing behind, composition is increasingly moving to the foreground of my interests. I don't believe I could follow all these paths and do each of them justice - there's just not enough hours in the day - so a choice must soon be made.

My last port before sign-off was Jamaica, and eleven of us made the pilgrimage out to Bob Marley's house in St. Ann. I'm not a rabid Marley devotee, but I felt very strongly that his house is vital to the history of music and of Jamaican culture and I would never forgive myself if I had missed the opportunity to pay respect. The drive was roughly an hour, through the hills of Jamaica, filled with both some gorgeous scenery and harrowing snapshots of the unfortunate reality of the Caribbean regions that are not the beneficiaries of the tourist dollar. Living in North America, we are often sheltered from the extreme economic stratifications that affect most of the planet. The excess of luxury vacation, and the sheer luck of being able to have any sort of decent employment (never mind whether it's what one loves to do) stood in stark contrast.

The first room one enters in the Marley complex is an open and bare one, with only a plaque commemorating the Legend compilation hanging from the wall, and his Witameyer upright piano sitting against another wall. My roommate had taken video on his first visit to Marley's place, and one clip showed a tourist plinking on the piano. I was unsure of whether I actually wanted to play that day, but between my own irresistible urge and the egging on of my friends, I sat down and played "Redemption Song." The piano was seemingly guarded by two Rastafarian men, but as I started playing, they started singing along, as did some of the other tourists. After the tour was over, a bunch of us hung around the bottom of the complex and listened to a guy playing "Three Little Birds" on banjo. I heard more piano tinkling from that same room, and went back to see what was going on. Those same two Rastas were still there, and they asked me to play again. After muddling through a little bit of "Lively Up Yourself," I started into "No Woman, No Cry." I immediately had goosebumps as everyone started singing along. The last time I had a similar experience was playing tunes at Banff that had any association with my friend Chris. As cheesy as this sounds, one can still feel Marley's energy emanating from that room.

Memorials and remembrances

Due to the limited resources for connectivity on the cruise ships, I feel sorely out of touch with the world around me. I get the CBC and NPR blog feeds but rarely have enough time to investigate them past the headlines.

The last time I called home, I asked my parents what was going on in the world aside from the murder of al-Zarqawi, the ongoing saga of Israel/Palestine and World Cup. The first thing they told me was that Billy Preston had passed on. I'm no authority on his work, but I remember watching his playing on Eric Clapton's recent One More Car, One More Rider DVD and seeing him revel in the joy of music, and the way he interacted with David Sancious without stepping on any toes, and being mightily impressed. Of course, his classic contributions to the Beatles, Stones, Aretha, Ray Charles and many others are not to be ignored.

And as I check my blogs today, I see that Ligeti has died. The best tribute is here, courtesy of Ethan Iverson. Again, I am no expert in Ligeti (and certainly not to the extent that Iverson and Alex Ross are), but my introduction to his music remains vivid in my memory. At the beginning of my dalliance with 20th-century classical music in high school (which, incidentally, lay dormant until I got to university), I asked my band director for some of the weirdest stuff he could give me that he'd still think I'd like. In the pile was the Sony recording of Ligeti's Horn Trio, Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet, Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet, and Sonata for Solo Viola. At the time, I didn't understand what was going on musically (and to this day I haven't investigated the scores enough to make that claim), but it was immediately affecting. Now I additionally admire Ligeti's struggle to find new forms of expression, his references to folkloric material without parroting or cheapening it (in the line of Stravinsky and Bartok) and his attention to instrumental detail (the French horn instructions in the wind quintets are maddeningly specific), but the emotional connection still remains strong.

It's unfortunate that my further investigation of Ligeti's music (and to a certain extent, Billy Preston's as well) will be catalysed by his passing.

Retail therapy

Half the band went out to Spec's yesterday, and we each dropped significant portions of our pay. My rewards:

Frederic Rzewski - Rzewski Plays Rzewski: Works for Solo Piano (the big Nonesuch box; fantastic. Thanks to Darcy for hipping me to him.)
Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale
The Roots - The Roots Come Alive
Miles Davis - Water Babies
Duke Ellington - ...and His Mother Called Him Bill

I listened to excerpts of the new Paul Simon/Brian Eno collaboration, and the jury's still out. Obviously, one cannot judge the work of either of those masters by 30-second sound bites, but by the same token nothing convincing enough to make me keep it in the pile jumped out at me.

Nem um dia

I’ve found this little CD store in Miami, underneath Marshall’s. On first glance it’s rather unimpressive – Marvin Gaye is filed into their jazz section, for instance, and their hip-hop section has precious little Blackalicious, The Roots, or anything other than the modern radio-ready pap. Venture into their Latin section, though (categorized by style and/or location) and many gems turn up. So far I have purchased Bebo Valdes’ Bebo de Cuba, his two-disc “masterwork” (a full big band suite and a three-horn & rhythm blowing session); Jorge Ben Jor’s MTV Acoustica DVD; and Djavan Ao Vivo on DVD as well. The Valdes disc is in heavy rotation now, and the Ben Jor DVD is fantastic, but I was most impressed by the Djavan DVD.

Kerry Politzer recommended Djavan to me when we were both at Banff last summer. When I got back to Montreal, I went on a search that led me to his first two records, Djavan and Alumbramento. (The general consensus on his music is that those two records are his apotheosis, and it’s all downhill from there.) The DVD focuses on his more recent work, though there are songs from that period as well. While I wouldn’t necessarily say Djavan’s music has gone on a downwards trajectory, the music has become simpler as he’s aged, and as one critic said, has fused Brazilian music with pop and hip-hop more than his earlier records which reflected the jazz and funk influence. One could draw a parallel with Sting’s development (compare Dream of the Blue Turtles with Sacred Love). The DVD was filmed in 2002 in a sold out stadium in Rio, and the audience is singing along with his melodies, which are catchy but not necessarily simple or repetitive. His forms are often unconventional by American pop standards, but the audience knows them like the back of their hands. Djavan lets the band stretch out, much like the space Sting gives to Branford Marsalis or Chris Botti, and they are warmly received. This further strengthens my intrigue into the Latin/Brazilian attitude and response towards music, especially as compared to the North American relationships with the art.

Water water everywhere

Unlike Pat, I haven’t found it easy to blog from the ship. Oddly enough, I’m on his original Cruise Ship X, with some of the same band members. It is indeed a small musical community. I’ve been on the ship for nearly a month, the time frame after which I’ve been told one can begin to form opinions on the cruise ship experience.

My first cruise was filled with orientation and training – not anything musical, mind you, but more of the environmental/safety sort. It’s important information, to be sure – essential for one’s survival aboard the vessel – but the way it is carried out is often redundant. Often, neither the trainers nor many of the students speak English as a first language, so there is the element of repetition to make sure things are clear, as well as the attempt to decipher various different accents and capabilities in the English language. This is the reason training sessions are scheduled for, and always take, three to four hours.

I lost track of time quite quickly, as I was warned. I now tell days by which port we’re in, not by dates. I did remember Mother’s Day.

I have been fortunate enough to visit each port at least once, and I am slowly forming a tan (and not through crustacean-esque burns as some of my Canadian colleagues are acquiring). Grand Cayman is quite quaint, though it loses its appeal quickly, especially if I’m not in a beach mood. I’m not a snorkel enthusiast or even a strong swimmer, so those attractions are not quite up my alley. Key West is similar in a much more American or Canadian way. It reminded me of the Unionville Village north of Toronto. I was introduced to a used bookstore in Key West, and on our next stop there I plan on returning. Among other finds, I finally located some Hunter S. Thompson (Hey Rube, a compendium of his columns for ESPN.com and probably most notable for the fact that it contains his ruminations on September 11). I’ve only been to Jamaica once, and on my future visits I’d like to avoid the tourist traps, but have so far failed – Margaritaville and the ReggaeXplosion hall of fame. Next time in Jamaica I’m definitely finding a way to either do the Bob Marley bus tour, or just split a cab to his house (now converted into a Rastafarian church). The tour is alluring in many ways – not just for the music and the history but to actually get out of the city and into the hills of Kingston. Another item on my Jamaican to-do list is to find some out of the way record stores and see what gems I can find. Blue Mountain coffee is a must, as well.

When we hit Calica last time, a few of us went out to the Mayan ruins of Tulum. We didn’t do a tour, we just walked around admiring the view and the iguanas that seamlessly blended into the stone towers surrounding us. There is a natural beach below the ruins, which we spent most of our time on. A tour guide came by and yelled out that the ruins closed in 15 minutes. We didn’t see everything, but most of it. We also stumbled across a little roadside restaurant at happy hour – 2 for 1 Cuba Libres, and a large plate of fajitas for 40-odd pesos.

I am enjoying the fresh air and being on the water. Luckily we haven’t hit seriously rough seas yet, though a couple of days ago the boat was rocking hard enough for cancellation of shows to be a possibility. The weather centres are predicting hurricane season to start early this year (June 1^st at the absolute latest) so the adventure and intrigue may increase in short order.

Musically, I’m rather ambivalent about the cruise ship experience. On the one hand, playing every night is quite beneficial and is an opportunity rarely found on land. Also, the production shows we’re doing revolve mostly around musical theatre or 1950s and ‘60s rock – music I grew up on but haven’t had a chance to play since high school. On the other hand, I’m feeling a little bit straitjacketed for multiple reasons: I don’t have the multitude of ensemble opportunities I had back at McGill (both for writing and playing), and the band’s fallen into the rut of playing the same charts cruise in and cruise out because of inefficient rehearsals. I also haven’t been able to practice – there’s a multitude of pianos around the ship, but even when we’re in port and the passengers are out, the radios are left on. In other words, I’m trying to practice Beethoven and Monk with Alicia Keys above my head. It doesn’t work. That said, one of my other acquisitions from the bookstore in Key West was Piano Pieces by Russell Sherman. It’s a rather whimsically metaphorical, yet in-depth, treatment of piano technique. I gather he’s on faculty at NEC. I’m reading it in lieu of a real practice regimen. He parades his vocabulary around a little too much for my liking, in addition to trotting out various allusions to mythology, the Bible and sports, but it is a very interesting perspective on the instrument and music in general.

That said, the MD and I work quite well together and most of the band is really quite solid. There are some notable exceptions, and to that end all I will say is that I will never again take for granted that other musicians will have similar frames of reference to mine. I’m trying to stay positive in the light of some of these more disheartening musical events, though it is draining. I suppose it would be more taxing to get caught in the negativity. I’ve also got pretty much carte blanche to arrange whatever tunes I want for the band, and the dancers, techs and band alike are pumped for the fact that this ship has a full eight-piece band for the first time in about a year (if not more). They were a quintet before I signed on, and within two cruises after my joining we were complete.

I’m trying to be diligent about composition, and I do have the goal of writing a chamber piece for some sort of double reed orchestration (most likely oboe, bassoon and piano), as well as setting groundwork for more big band music, but it’s been slow going. I have a couple of melodic fragments that might have potential. I just need to get down to business. My roommate is the DJ at the disco, a vocalist and former music industry insider from Chicago who came up in the 50s and 60s, and worked with some big soul stars in the 1980s. He’s got a lot of stories and has been really inspiring, working away on GarageBand in his free time. I’ve been swapping music with both him and my bandmates, and it’s been quite the blast.

Forthcoming inspirations

To commence my packing for the cruise ship, I tackled the most arduous part of it: the media I'll be sequestered with for nearly three months. During my undergrad I grew out of the habit of pleasure reading, which I hope to rectify on board.

Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities (currently being read); Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Idiot; Notes From the Underground & The Double; George Orwell - 1984 (no, I haven't read this yet, I know, shame on me); Rainer Maria Rilke - Letters To A Young Poet; Jack Kerouac - The Dharma Bums.

I won't bore you with the full list of CDs I'm taking, but a quick summary include my "desert island" standbys of Herbie Hancock - Speak Like A Child and Thrust, Chick Corea's Now He Sings Now He Sobs, and Jaco's self-titled debut, as well as the requisite dose of Billy Joel, Keith Jarrett, Bruce Hornsby, and hip-hop (K-os' Joyful Rebellion). I'm also taking some CDs I have recently acquired and need to immerse myself in (John Hollenbeck's A Blessing, Bob Brookmeyer's Waltzing With Zoe, a disc of Ligeti chamber music), and discs I've neglected for far too long (A Love Supreme, Mingus Ah Um, Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth, Beethoven's "Eroica" as conducted by Bernstein, and Shostakovich's Piano Concerti #1 and #2).

And in case there are readers unfamiliar with Darcy James Argue, check out his latest set from the Bowery Poetry Club. Fantastic.

Music and language (part 2)

My first post on the connectons between music and language was more metaphorical and abstract in nature, treating genres or styles as languages or dialects. Fittingly enough, I'm listening to BBC3's web archive of Dave Douglas' Blue Latitudes (and Douglas' own musings on musical collisions were one of the catalysts for the first post), and I think he successfully relates the domains of "classical" and "jazz" or "composed/notated" and "improvised" - either by linking and bridging or full-on collision.

This post is more concrete and literal, on a subject that's raised its head on occasion during my time in Montreal. It was brought into relief by this entry by Québécoise percussionists/vocalists DobaCaracol, chronicling their experience at Canadian Music Week (CMW). For those who don't speak French, the quick translation/redux is that there's a segregation between the francophone and anglophone music scenes in Canada. While Doba have not faced such ill acceptance in other anglophone countries (they've apparently got quite the tour of Australia lined up), their appearances in Ontario, Greater Toronto Area specifically, have received a lukewarm welcome, to be kind. Their performance at Live 8 in Barrie, Ontario, was greeted by a bunch of blank stares.

Doba characterises this division as being between Quebec and Canada, which I don't abide by for a few reasons. Aside from the fact that Québécois despise Céline and Bryan Adams in equal proportion to the rest of Canada (if not with more vehemence), the distinction isn't drawn by location - it seems to be drawn by language. Chanteuses like Ariane Moffatt get quite the turnout from Franco-Ontarians (and, I would presume, Acadians); and even in Montreal there's a stark delineation between the anglo and francophone pop scenes. If I don't diligently read the French entertainment weeklies, I'll miss out on knowing about francophone shows. While Voir will write about anglophone and/or international bands, Hour and Mirror rarely write about anything French unless it's the Francofolies. In fact, Hour's interview with Plaster was admittedly the first time English press had contacted them. Plaster is an instrumental band, whose members happen to be francophone. It even extends to venues - places like Le Va-et-Vient and Cabaret La Tulipe are generally regarded as francophone venues. For a while, Café L'Utopik and Divan Orange were thus categorized as well, though McGillians have started to infiltrate both of them.

This segregation seems to exist more in the pop world, and less so in the jazz/improvised (musique actuelle)/classical communities here. The OSM has both francophone and anglophone members; not quite sure about the Orchestre Métropolitaine. There's an increasing rate of collaboration between French and English jazz musicians, though I'm told that around 15 years ago they were pretty separate as well. As an anglophone that does attempt to follow the francophone scene, I can attest to the multitude of music that anglos are missing out on. Okay, so no one's missing anything by not watching Star Académie, but it's really a shame that they're unfamiliar on Doba, Ariane, Karkwa, and many other talented local musicians that have nothing to do with Arcade Fire. Moondata's LABProjects pride themselves on joining both languages and multiple genres in their improvised monthly mashups, and they garner a fairly linguistically split audience. EDIT: props to Moondata for doing a Moondata vs. Plaster mashup! This needs to happen more often!

And honestly, it seems like quite a one-sided thing. I had no trouble finding francophones at a K-os concert, but I might have been the only anglophone who caught Séba & Ghislain Poirier at Francofolies the other year. Why should we be content with our linguistic lot?

Question to fellow bi- or multi-lingual music lovers (e.g., paging Mwanji): does this happen elsewhere?

Progress report

I have finished class time as an undergrad. All that remains is my final performance exam on April 19. Then I'm off on a cruise ship until mid-July. I hope to use the spare ship time (which is abundant, I'm told) for composing. It'll be an exercise to improve my discipline and self-motivation, which will be handy for my out-of-school life. I'm rather looking forward

My colleagues in the Giusto Brass Quintet asked me to arrange some material for them, and they're taking my arrangement of "Paranoid Android" on their Ontario tour. I wish them the best, and hopefully our artistic relationship will continue into the future. I'm increasingly interested in the instrumental possibilities of chamber music that complement the potential of more jazz-based ensembles.

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a "Manhattan on the Rideau" master class at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. It was one of these teleconference things set up between the NAC and the Manhattan School of Music - the McGill Jazz Orchestra was playing student compositions/arrangements while composer/arranger Michael Abene critiqued them from an MSM classroom. He had interesting things to say: some remarks were rather obvious, and others were pretty subjective and could be taken with a grain of salt. It was a fresh, welcome perspective on the craft though, and he seemed like someone I could work well with, if the opportunity should arise.

Recent inspirations:
Guillermo Klein y los Guachos - Live in Barcelona
Gyorgy Ligeti - Trio for Horn, Violin & Piano; Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet; Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet; Sonata for Solo Viola (Sony Classical)
The collected poems of Kenneth Rexroth
Michael Herring's Vertigo featuring David Binney - Coniferous Revenge

Unfortunate losses

Via DJA: Jackie McLean and Don Alias both passed away this week.

I'm not nearly as familiar with Jackie's music as I should be, which I'm rather ashamed to admit. It's really a pity that I'll be checking his work out under these sort of circumstances. I've heard nothing but good things in regards to his involvement with education at the Hartt School.

I'm no expert on Don Alias' work either, but I remember the first time I heard Jaco's opening salvo of "Donna Lee" on the self-titled record. While Jaco's bass playing is quite incredible, the simpatico he had with Don, and Don's responsiveness, was really quite impressive. His multifaceted expertise on both kit and percussion graced many records, and was always tasteful. The first record I heard him on, if memory serves me correctly, was Herbie Hancock's The New Standard. He never got in Jack DeJohnette's way.

The one thing that strikes me at the news of any musician's death is how cultural history seems to fade away, and that I'm saddened by the possibility of youth growing up in a world devoid of such work. Will kids born today know what McLean, Alias, Steve Lacy, Derek Bailey or Elvin Jones did? Will they know about Ray Charles or Johnny Cash past what was portrayed in the movies?

The false dichotomy of protection

Via aurgasm.us: South by Southwest attendees and panelists give middlemen the middle digit.

There are these industries of middlemen - RIAA, MPAA - that claim to "protect artists" but what they're really protecting is themselves. Artists (and I include myself in that word) need to rise up and tell these people to go get stuffed. We can decide when a mashup is perfectly fine with us. We can decide to embrace file traders to build awareness of our work. We don't need you anymore. You're just holding us back.

After all, when we allow these industry groups to frame the debate about the internet and file trading as artists versus pirates, it's a false dichotomy. No one in that angry audience in Austin wants to dupe a movie to sell it on the street. That's piracy. We just want to put movies on our hard drives and iPods, share our mix CDs with each other (just like we used to do with tapes), and mash that funny video with that cool song to produce something new, something we'll give away for free.

The whole popularity of the MySpace/CDBaby market structure, as well as music recommendation/streaming radio services such as Last.fm, Pandora or Yahoo!Launch Music, is testimony to the divergence from the model the RIAA is so desperately trying to protect. And as labels merge and catalogue gets pulled, artists and listeners are forced to utilize alternative means to locate the music they want.

Goulasch!

Last night, I attended cellist Matt Haimovitz's first concert in a series of three, entitled Goulasch! The series' overarching theme is the exploration in various forms of the music of (and related to, in differing ways) Béla Bartók. Last night, Bartók was manifest as composer (the Romanian Dances and Rhapsodie No. 1, both arranged for four cellos - Haimovitz and three of his students, aka Uccello - by Luna Pearl Woolf), aspiring folklorist/ethnomusicologist (the improvisations and songs of Turkish folk Ensemble Constantinople), and guiding figure for Ligeti (Sonata for Solo Cello). Also performed were Tod Machover's Dadaji in Paradise, and Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. The performance was one continuous set, bridged by the soundscapes of DJ Olive.

It was an impressive effort. Haimovitz is a true virtuoso - he has terrific command of the instrument, fantastic intonation, control of extended technique, and most importantly, phenomenal musicianship. He was obviously engaged in his playing, head bobbing, hair flying, egging on Olive and his students. He is a surprisingly strong improviser, as evidenced by the opening variations on the Turkish folksongs Bartók recorded. Interacting with both Olive and Constantinople, Haimovitz demonstrated his capacity for matching and/or complementing sounds on a whim. I was reminded of violinist Mark Feldman - although Feldman has substantially more background and experience in improvising (especially that of jazz improvising). I wished to hear more interaction between Olive and the rest of the musicians - his soundscapes were magnificently "illbient," and his samples well-chosen, but I know his improvising work with Billy Martin and Dave Douglas and wanted to hear him contribute a little bit more. As well, I know that at least one of Haimovitz's students in Uccello, Judith Manger, is a solid improviser in her own right and it would have been intriguing if Haimovitz had gotten his students involved in that aspect of the concert as well. The coda of "Kashmir" had this air of collective fun, with cellos being slapped percussively and DJ Olive even scratching vinyl laughter towards the end.

There seems to be a new wave of young McGill professors (Haimovitz, Shawn Mativetsky) injecting a dose of open-mindedness, inventiveness, and engagement into the conservatory proceedings. Too often in music schools, concerts get bogged down in their own artistic pretensions and somewhat repetitive or predictable programming. The audience, too, needs to be thrown a few curveballs. The concert was held on the unfinished seventh floor of the new music building (quite possibly the only concert that will ever be held there, as it's slated to house offices when McGill finds the money for completion), and while waiting in line for the elevator I heard the requisite bad jokes about "Hey, we must be going to a rave; there's a DJ!" The producer from CBC noted that this might be the first time a turntablist has been involved in one of these concerts. So much the better. I'm graduating this year, so I won't get to experience much of the future progress, but I do know that the performance department is finally starting to give improvisation its due credit (promoting the Contemporary Improvisation Ensemble, supporting improvising master classes). I hope that in the near future they will embrace the new aesthetics of chamber music and bring up Alarm Will Sound or Vijay Iyer's collaborations with Mike Ladd.

You would rather have a Lexus or justice?

Last weekend, I went to see Dave Chappelle's Block Party. I'm not a hip-hop aficionado, but I'm a fan of the Roots (who serve as the house band for the majority of the concert), Mos Def, Common, and Jill Scott (who's a fantastic singer, and a phenomenal presence live). Erykah Badu and Talib Kweli are not among my favourites, but I like them. The only group I didn't know on the roster was Dead Prez, and I have to say the only Kanye West I know is "Gold Digger." Add in a Fugees reunion and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) directing, and it's a very promising film.

Gondry doesn't approach the Block Party like a hip-hop The Last Waltz; he constructs a story out of the preparations leading up to the concert, interspersed with the relevant parts of the concert. The performers become the protagonists of a story about community. The casualty of this structure are complete performances - if memory serves the only unfaded, complete performance is Dead Prez's "It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop." However, this interview with Gondry reveals that much of the 8-hour concert is to be included in the DVD. I hope the record companies can get their act together and clear the Fugees' participation (due to licensing red tape, they're not on the soundtrack).

Also, my jazzhead side was proud of the scene where Chappelle rambles through "Round Midnight" on a Salvation Army Rhodes, and encourages all up-and-coming comics and musicians to study to the work of Thelonious Monk. "Off time, and perfectly on time."

Strings program and post-mortem

The Indigone Trio + Strings recital was a resounding success. Thanks to Irwin Block for promoting the show in the Gazette (we were a Best Bet of the week, along with Eddie Palmieri and Chet Doxas). Of the three recitals I've done during my time at McGill, I think this one was the best, and not necessarily just in terms of execution, but in channeling and focussing the talents of the core trio (myself, Alex and Liam) into a bigger project. What follows is the program that was handed out at the recital, for those who couldn't be there. Andrew Mullin bravely recorded the recital - I should have a mix back shortly, and the highlights will go up on MySpace.

We endeavor to play music without fear - energetic, inventive, alive and awake. Beautiful and crazy. – Geoffrey Keezer

Side A

Visions (Stevie Wonder, arr. Ryshpan) – An underrated song with a sentiment that rings far too true, thirty-odd years after Stevie penned it. May we be fortunate enough to realize such a vision in our own lifetimes? It’s looking like we’ll still have to grab our wings and fly away. DRR

Erghen Diado (Petar Lyondev, arr. Ryshpan) – All instrumentalists attempt to recreate the power and immediacy of the human voice. Transcribed from the first volume of Le mystere des voix bulgares (a Bulgarian women’s radio choir), this piece’s beauty lies in its deceptive simplicity. It sounds far more intricate than it actually is. DRR

Love Is the Reason (Alex Mallett) – For Lina. AM

Smacked (David Ryshpan) – The only complete original piece of music I wrote out at Banff in the summer of 2005. Whether the catalyst for creativity was Dave Douglas’ sage advice or avian interference (or a combination of the two), we’ll never know. Credit is due to bassist/composer Michael Bates, who came up with integral arrangement ideas, as well as jokes at my expense. DRR

Side B
Piece for Open Strings (Alex Mallett) – I wrote this as an exploration of the natural beauty of stringed instruments. I was interested in what could be created with the instruments’ barest potential. AM

Agua (Djavan, arr. Ryshpan) – Another Banff colleague, pianist/composer Kerry Politzer, turned me onto this Brazilian singer-songwriter. When I first heard this song, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’m also a firm believer in the superstition of water guiding your entire life, should you be born in rain. That is to say, most major events in my life have been marked by precipitation in some way. It hasn’t failed me yet. DRR

Shahgely (trad. Egyptian, arr. Ryshpan) – A truly multicultural experience; an Egyptian melody learned in the Rocky Mountains from a Torontonian ex-pat living in Copenhagen. This melody is always a blast to play, and the arrangement is an extension of what developed rather organically at Banff. It’s a souvenir of the door of musical perception that swung wide open. Thanks to Graig Earle and Dylan van der Schyff. DRR

Throughout (Bill Frisell, arr. Ryshpan) – In tribute to a fallen comrade. This piece has had a recurring presence over the past year, and represents the cycles of life and of acceptance. In French, undergraduate and graduate studies are referred to as cycles; and as one cycle ends, another one commences. I can’t think of a more fitting conclusion to the concert. I dedicate this specifically to Chris Driscoll, but additionally to all those who, in their absence, continue to influence and inspire us. DRR

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. – Leonard Bernstein